A Change in Page Substitution Policy
Update March 28, 2011:
Ka-Blam no longer provides a low resolution digital proof with invoices. If you would like a printed proof then simply reduce your order quantity to “1″ copy.
Jul 8, 2010
Effective with all orders received beginning July 9 we’re making a change in our page substitution policy.
Previously the page substitution fee applied only to changes made AFTER an order had been printed. From this point on the fee will apply to any changes we have to make at any point after you’ve been invoiced … regardless of whether the book has printed or not.
Because we assemble the printable documents from pages you supply to us we send a digital proof along with the invoice. This is so that you may check that we have assembled the document correctly. The digital proof is for pagination check purposes ONLY. It is not a representation of print quality (it’s low resolution by design) and the digital “trims” are an approximation of where the actual trims will be on the finished product. Our digital proof was NEVER intended to be your opportunity to proof your book for spelling, grammar, or any issues other than pagination. All of that should have been done BEFORE the order was submitted.
The files for all orders must be sent to us PRINT READY. This means that before you archive your files and send them to us that you have not only built them to the proper, provided technical specifications but that you thoroughly proofed them. We do not offer a proofing service. We’re not equipped to be a proofing service and yet we are receiving an unusually high — and seemingly escalating — volume of requests for page substitutions/replacements on orders we’ve yet to print. Some days we have two staffers doing nothing but page substitutions ALL day. This, more than anything else, bogs down our process, and adds to the cost of doing business. With the ever growing volume of orders we’re receiving we can’t continue down this same path. We’re not asking you to do anything that we haven’t already been asking from the beginning. The only difference now is that instead of asking we’re insisting.
So before you place your order and send your archived files to us you MUST be sure that —
1. Your files are all built to the proper technical specifications
2. All the page files necessary for your print job are included — including inside cover pages
3. Your pages are free of misspellings or grammatical errors or missing word balloons
4. Your page files are named using a logical, intuitive naming scheme
5. Your archive is extractable and your pages are free of any distortion
If we have to make any changes to a printable document after we’ve sent an invoice then a page substitution fee of $1 per page –with a minimum fee of $5 and a maximum of $25 PER book will apply. No exceptions.
Amen to that. If yu have to be pulled away from books on the queue to do books that are already going through it should be worth your time to charge for it.
I concur with what Gary says. I hand off a home printer version of my finished pages to two or three people after the pages are done to see if something sticks out, whether it be something wasn’t colored in, something looks off, or there are typos or missing punctuation.
Without exception, I’ve always managed to miss things. It’s always a good idea to have someone proof one’s work before sending ANYTHING to print. :)
Thanks both Gary and Mario :)
I wrote a ka-blam image format checking tool once.
One question – does this also apply if there are pagination errors on Ka-Blam’s side? I had one proof go back for a fix because the introduction had been placed in reverse page order. Would the substitution fee still be charged in cases like this?
It never applies to errors on our part.